


photograph

by minachandler



Series: we make these memories for ourselves [9]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Post-Coital, Shameless Smut, Smut, Woman on Top, road trip fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 07:49:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4471193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minachandler/pseuds/minachandler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-3x23. Oliver's birthday is nearly at an end, and he couldn't be happier - especially with Felicity by his side. But then a photograph unexpectedly takes them both on a trip down memory lane, and Oliver revels in his new discovery about the woman he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	photograph

**Author's Note:**

> So this got unexpectedly smutty. Oops. But since it's apparently National Orgasm Day over the pond, it's kind of appropriate :) Still, please read with caution, because this story is definitely not for kiddies. 
> 
> This is dedicated to Lisa/[quiveringbunny](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quiveringbunny/pseuds/quiveringbunny/works).  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Gorgeous poster by [cherrychapssstick](http://cherrychapssstick.tumblr.com/post/131012230267/photograph-by-minachandler) on tumblr.
> 
> The title is taken from the Ed Sheeran song of the same name.

Felicity is sitting on their bed, a tray with a bottle of Chardonnay and two glasses sitting somewhat precariously beside her when Oliver emerges from the bathroom. The album she got him for his birthday is on her lap as she flicks through it, a quiet smile on her lips. She is wearing his shirt, and as she turns towards him at the sound of the door opening, he has to hold back a sigh. Even now – _especially_ now – he marvels at how beautiful she is.   
  
Her hair is mussed, mascara smudged and lipstick smeared a little, a faint streak of red on one rosy cheek. Oliver can't help but smile when he sees another lip-shaped stain on the collar of his shirt, which is more than slightly rumpled. Of course, Felicity catches him staring and grins back, eyes soft, lips ever so slightly parted. She adjusts the shirt, which hangs loosely on her slim frame, far too big, but it still looks – Oliver knows – infinitely better on her than it could ever do on him.  
  
(Besides, he is more than comfortable in just his boxer shorts if she’s going to look at him like that.)  
  
"Hey," she says a second later, gesturing for him to come and join her. He is by her side in a heartbeat, and he can't stop himself from touching her cheek and kissing her slowly, languidly, on her lips in greeting. And then, as he always does, he moves away from her just enough for her to get back her breath, but not so far away that he would miss her smile immediately after his kiss. "I got us our usual."  
  
"And I'm guessing you've already paid for it," Oliver says, and for a moment, her expression looks almost stern. (She's doing that thing where she cocks her head to one side and just gives him this look that simply, silently asks, "Really?" It's a look that she's clearly perfected in the three years he's known her, the number of times he's been on the receiving end of it. Especially when it comes to money and they have that “but-I'm-an-ex-VP-of-a-billion-dollar-company” versus “I-still-have-some-of-my-inheritance-stashed-away-I-just-never-told-you-about-it” argument – which they seem to have won alternately so far.) But then, unlike all the other times, Felicity surprises him with a smile.  
  
"I can't let you pay for anything on your birthday."  
  
He laughs, checks his watch. It's almost midnight.   
  
"It's not going to be my birthday for much longer."  
  
Felicity shrugs. "Doesn't matter.” Oliver leans over her, then, picking up both the wine glasses with one hand. He lingers, probably for longer than he needs to, but she isn’t complaining; if anything, she revels in it (same as him). He’s so close to her that he can feel the kiss of her breath against the hollow of his throat, the soft heat in the rise and fall of her chest and the plumpness of her breasts as they press against his bare skin.  
  
“Thank you for this,” he says, even though he knows he’s said it already, and he watches as she leans back a little on the bed, stretching her legs leisurely and all the while looking up at him.  
  
“You're welcome,” Felicity says warmly, and after a second’s thought, she raises her right eyebrow in a manner that is ever so slightly suggestive and adds, “What for, exactly, though? The present, the dinner or the sex?”  
  
He laughs, and he feels his spine begin to tingle remembering the scrape of her nails on his shoulders, her hand rubbing between his legs as she made him come in his pants, her heady, sweet taste when he had sucked her fingers after...   
  
“All of it?”  
  
She shrugs, pretending to look nonchalant, but her eyes sparkle with a smile nevertheless. "Works for me." Then she turns a page in the album. To his surprise, it is empty. A blank space. Oliver reaches over, flicking through, and he realises that she's spaced out the photos and that there are sizable gaps between pictures.   
  
"I figured you could add more this way,” she explains. “You know, document those new memories you were talking about."  
  
"I doubt any of those are photograph-friendly," he murmurs, and she laughs, her head thrown back, hair golden in the soft light of the desk lamp. He joins in, loving the glow in her cheeks that only grows brighter with her laugh.  
  
Unexpectedly, she gets to her feet, placing the album in his lap, and she returns to the bed moments later with a pack of baby wipes. He looks at her curiously, not really understanding until she starts wiping her makeup off with them. She just smiles, though, at his raised eyebrows and slight frown, and he drops his gaze to the photos again, turning the page.   
  
Oliver can't help but cringe a little at the picture.   
  
It's the one that was plastered all over the news when he had first returned to Starling. He's only tolerated it in other family albums because it's the last one he ever took with his father, but even now, he regrets agreeing to pose for a picture when he was so obviously stoned on something or another. He glances at Felicity, whose smile has widened for some reason as she peers a little more closely at the photo.  
  
She looks different. Without makeup, her features are less defined, cheekbones not quite as prominent, eyebrows ever so slightly lighter, and it is easier to see how swollen her lips are now they are back to their natural pink.  
  
Though Felicity looks like she is on the verge of saying something, she doesn’t, not at first. Instead, she balls up the wipes in her hand and attempts to aim for the bin in the corner of the room, but she just misses. She just shrugs, though, and uncorks the Chardonnay bottle, pouring each of them a good measure of alcohol, before placing the bottle on the bedside cabinet. She raises her glass, and he does the same in a wordless toast (they don't need words, not really). Still, she has that same smile on her lips, that faraway smile that tells Oliver she knows something he doesn’t.   
  
"Don't tell me you didn't like my pre-island haircut," he quips once he's taken a sip. She laughs and shakes her head, as if coming out of a reverie.   
  
"Sorry, this just... reminded me of something," she says, and she shifts, getting more comfortable on the bed and crossing her legs. The movement exposes a few more inches of her thighs as the shirt she is wearing rides up a bit, but she doesn't seem to notice. "When I first started working at QC, I mean."  
  
Maybe it's just him, or the alcohol, or the post-coital haze clouding his brain, but he can't see how the two things even connect.  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
Felicity laughs again, this time more to herself than him, and it’s quieter, too. "I had only been working there a couple of weeks when I was sent on an errand. I was just supposed to leave something on someone's desk, but then..." She points at the photo, taking the album from him and placing it on the cabinet. "I saw this. And, I don't know... maybe because I had been having a rough go of it at the time –"  
  
"Because of Cooper?" he guesses, and she nods. Briefly, her smile fades a bit and is tinged ever so slightly with melancholy. Without even thinking about it, Oliver's free hand covers hers where it is lying on her bare knee. She squeezes back, and they both down their drinks at the same time. Felicity tugs her hand away, reaching for the bottle again, and she busies herself in topping up both their glasses before she speaks.   
  
"Cooper, my mom, everyone at college, everyone at work, relocating to Starling, having to make new friends, new neighbours," she says, and it's like she's ticking items off a list. Oliver knows what she means. He gets it. He felt like that too when he first came back to Starling. He takes a sip of his drink (looking away from her, allowing her time, room, to breathe, to wait, because when she opens up to him, he never wants to push her) and he can see it helps. Still, it surprises him when she says tentatively, "Promise you won't laugh?"  
  
Felicity's serious, now. Immediately, Oliver nods, saying, "I promise."  
  
"Well, I saw that picture of you, and I can remember, even now, thinking that you were kind of cute. You know," Felicity teases, and after taking another draught of her beverage, she licks her lips, no longer looking nervous, in a way that Oliver knows is unfairly tantalising, "in that drunk, billionaire frat boy kind of way."  
  
"I'm pretty sure I was stoned in that photo, actually," he admits. She just shakes her head fondly, indulgently running her forefinger along one of the veins in his arm. He shivers (in a way that has nothing to do with his lack of shirt).   
  
"Colour me not at all surprised. But it was nice. You know, after… Cooper, I hadn’t really felt like myself. And, I mean, I probably brought it on myself – I tried to change so much of myself after everything that happened. But, I don’t know, seeing that photo of you, it made me feel like _me_ again, for the first time in what felt like forever. And I remember thinking," Felicity continues, "that it was just too bad you were, you know, dead."  
  
And suddenly, at her words, something clicks into place in Oliver's memory – something he has had stored away for years - and he barely hears her next words ("I've always been into bad boys") over the sudden ticking that is going on in his brain.  
  
"When did you say this was again?" he asks, and he tries to keep his voice light, even though his heart is racing.  
  
"About five years ago," Felicity answers, but she has no idea that her words have just affirmed what he has wondered for a long time but never properly entertained as an actual possibility. “I think that was the first picture of you that I could find. I guess you could call me sentimental.”  
  
Without thinking, Oliver smiles and says, "And then you said you needed to learn to stop talking to yourself.”  
  
Her hand stills on his wrist, but her nails still flick lightly against his skin. At first, it's like she can't speak.  
  
(It's not often that he renders her speechless. It's only happened a couple of times before: in that restaurant when they had their first date and he told her the colour of the pen she was chewing when they first met, in Queen Mansion when he told her he loved her for the first time and – perhaps his favourite of all – in that dark red room in Nanda Parbat where he first made to run his tongue along the inside of her thigh. And he can't help but feel proud of the fact that for once she can't find words when usually she thinks she finds too many.)  
  
But like all those times, Felicity eventually manages to find her voice again. "How did you... how could you _possibly_ know what I said all those years ago?"  
  
He's enjoying this, probably more than he should. "Remember when I was telling you about my time away?"  
  
Her confusion only seems to increase if the creases forming on her forehead are anything to go by. But then they clear and she nods to herself. "Right. On the jet to Nanda Parbat. You told me you came back to Starling," she says slowly.   
  
"I never said why," he says, "or who else I saw aside from Thea."  
  
“You saw me?” she asks, and Oliver answers her with a kiss. She’s surprised; he can feel as much from the way her lips are still for several moments before she kisses him back, catching his lower lip between her teeth.  
  
Finally, they break apart, and he loves how her lips are shiny, reddened by the intensity of their kiss (but what he loves more is the expectant, smiling look in her eyes as she gazes up at him, awaiting a proper explanation). “I had to break into Queen Consolidated for some intel… when I heard the sound of footsteps. Your footsteps. Obviously,” he says, “I thought, at first, that I had been found out, that maybe our target had someone inside QC itself, or something. Mentally, at least, I was getting ready for a fight. But then…”  
  
He pauses to laugh, and eventually, she says, “But then what?”  
  
“You opened your mouth,” he tells her, still smiling, and she’s the one to chuckle this time, “and I realised you couldn’t possibly be an inside woman – or, in fact, anything even resembling a bad person – if you were saying you need to stop talking to yourself.”  
  
Felicity’s eyes light up when he says that. She sits up a bit on their bed, uncrossing her legs and holding on to his shoulders for support. “Why didn’t you say anything?”  
  
He has to think about that for a moment, and she takes that time to wrap her arms around his neck, hoisting herself up to her knees. For once, she’s the taller one – the mattress groans just a little at her weight when she shifts closer to him. “I don’t know,” Oliver says honestly. “I didn’t even know for sure that it was you. And you know me. I like certainty. I didn’t want to say it, in the off-chance it wasn’t you, and I guess… I don’t know, part of me didn’t think it was possible for… that big a coincidence to even exist.”  
  
“Well,” she says, and she climbs onto his lap, now, making him sigh deeply, “you have to admit, stranger things have happened.”  
  
Oliver closes his eyes, savouring the feeling of her lips brushing against his, arms encircling her waist. “Like what?” he murmurs, and he savours the hum of Felicity’s laughter in his mouth.  
  
“Us basically driving off into the sunset, for one,” she says. He smiles, too. "The fact that I now call my mother on a semi-regular basis... us being in the same room before we even knew each other doesn't seem like much of a stretch, I don't think.”  
  
“True." And now, one hand wanders lower, unexpectedly slipping into the waistband of her panties. He uses his thumb, gently tracing her hipbone and eliciting a moan from her that arouses him more than he expects.

"And... mm... you getting hitched in Nanda Parbat is definitely on that list,” she adds. He tries not to make a sound, taking her glass from her and placing it on the cabinet with his glass, but she detects the slight unease in him at her words nevertheless. “Sorry.”  
  
“No,” says Oliver firmly, and he looks up at her, hands moving up her back to grasp her shoulders. “I'm the one who should be apologising.”  
  
Felicity shakes her head. “I don’t think a wedding officiated by some creepy priest lady – who, by the way, I'm pretty sure is actually a sorceress – really counts as a wedding, Oliver.”  
  
“Still,” he insists. “I'm sorry.”  
  
And for some reason, Felicity smiles, leaning forward until her breasts are flush against his bare chest. Her breath ghosts on his ear as she whispers, "We’ve talked about it. And you apologised already. You really need to put your mouth to better use."  
  
He can’t stop the smile spreading on his lips when she says that. 

“Understood,” he says, and he doesn’t know why his voice suddenly sounds rougher than usual. But, obediently, he gets to his feet, kissing her, and he feels her legs tighten around his hips as he turns round and just as easily deposits her back on the bed. He laughs at her resultant pout, but her expression changes when he drops to his knees, fingers tangling with the elastic of her panties again.   
  
This time, he pulls them down with a sharp tug, at the same time lowering his head so he can drop a kiss on her ankle. Her underwear pooled at her feet, Oliver realises that the sweet, intoxicating scent of her arousal is back – and as he inches closer, gently pushing her thighs apart a little wider and settling in between her legs, he can feel the dampness of the cotton on his knee.  
  
"Oliver..." Felicity breathes. He loves the way she says his name, her little throaty sigh after she pronounces the last syllable.  
  
He reaches up, brushing his knuckles against her entrance, and his hand is immediately wet. He does it again, touching her centre lightly with the backs of his fingers, all the while watching her squirm appreciatively, and then, when he does slide his finger inside, he can feel her thighs tense around his hand.  
  
Again, he pries her legs apart, removing his hand. She lies back on the bed, supine, indolent. Expectant. 

The wetness is leaking onto her thigh, now. He drags his forefinger through the sticky moisture that lingers in her centre, making her gasp. He goes a little gentler, making his touch light – feather-light – smearing her essence over her thigh. Gradually, he increases the pressure, touching, kneading her sensitive skin of her inner thigh, fingers making figure-eight motions across her flesh. Then his tongue darts out, licking, lapping up every drop, kissing his way across her skin, which is glistening in the dim light, until he reaches her centre. When his tongue slips inside her, she cries out, and instinctively one hand goes up to lie on her stomach and higher, higher, until he can feel the soft curve made by the underside of her breast through the material of the shirt she is still wearing.  
  
Meanwhile, his tongue flicks along her folds and deeper inside, easily bearing the way she arches into his mouth, gripping his hand tightly. Her cry when he finds her clitoris seems to reverberate through the room, but still, Oliver doesn’t stop, sucking down on that spot in the way he knows she loves. 

“Oh, fuck,” she hisses, and the lazy thrumming of his pulse begins to speed up (because he has realised in the last two weeks that Felicity Smoak cursing during sex is most definitely a turn-on for him). His teeth scrape against her clitoris, and he knows she’s close now, from the way her body is shuddering beneath his mouth and her hips begin to rock against him; and then, moments later, she’s climaxing, grasping his shoulders, and he lets her, lets her dig her nails into his flesh. When she finally starts to slow down and manages to sit up again, he lifts his head, gazing up at her and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

(He decides that he was wrong before. This is definitely his favourite instance of him rendering her speechless.)

After her mouth opens and closes a few times, only for nothing intelligible to come out, she sighs, and he takes advantage of her temporary silence to reach up and unbutton the shirt he realises she is still wearing. He can feel the carpet burning his bare knees, but he stays where he is, making quick work of the buttons before sliding the garment off each of her arms.

“I love you,” she blurts out, and even now, those three words – oft-uttered by them both – are music to his ears and makes his breath catch in his throat. That (combined with the fact that directly above him are her bare breasts and her nipples, dusky pink, are already erect from their sudden exposure) is enough to send a rush of heat to Oliver’s belly and heighten the throbbing in his groin. His hand automatically goes inside his underwear and closes around his erection, and he groans in satisfaction because at least his desire is partially satiated. At the same time, he reaches up to kiss her chastely, softly, on her lips, and she kisses him back, tugging down his boxers.

Then she slides down and off the bed, landing half on top of him, and her thigh brushing dangerously close to him is enough to make him come right there. He doesn’t, though, closing his eyes tightly and shaking his ankle, focusing on removing his underwear from his foot, and it’s as he’s rubbing his thumb along the tip that he realises it’s already wet.

He’s surprised, therefore, when he feels her soft hand on his wrist and her lips on his collarbone.

“Come for me.” Felicity is mouthing the words into his skin, her hardened nipple rubbing insistently against his chest, and her voice (no more than a whisper) is more than a little muffled from where her face is buried in his neck, but that’s all he needs. His hand goes faster, and he opens his eyes, watches as she raises her head and looks up at him, and he doesn’t want to blink now, wants to see all her beautiful features when he reaches his climax (and considering how long he has had to stave it off for, he knows it won’t be long), and her hand hasn’t moved from his wrist – when he groans again, her fingers tighten, undeterred by the way his pulse is most definitely racing. Oliver looks up into her eyes, so warm and rich and loving and yet also on fire, alight with desire. 

And when he comes into his own hand, it’s quick and thick and messy but Felicity just kisses him soundly on his lips, her mouth swallowing the moan that inadvertently escapes from his throat. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, kissing, Oliver – still breathing heavily – unable to do more than part his lips, letting her explore his mouth with her tongue until she is every bit as breathless as him. Forehead leaning against hers, he meets her eyes, aware of their noses still brushing against each other. 

“Sorry,” he whispers when he sees the state of her thighs, covered in the sticky mess of his orgasm. She doesn’t say anything – she just picks up his hand (which is still hovering around his groin), lifting it to her mouth, and she runs her tongue along his thumb, licking it clean before she closes her mouth around his forefinger. 

“What did I say about putting your mouth to better use?” she says, and her tone is playful but he can tell she means it. 

Oliver smiles back, tries again. “I love you.” 

When she kisses him, he can taste the sharp tang of himself on her lips and the hum of his name on her tongue. He lets her push him onto his back, so she can straddle his waist, and the carpet on his back should really be burning his skin, but the only fire he can feel is in his blood, in his bones, in his heart, all just from the way she gazes down at him, her beautiful eyes melting into his.

“Better,” Felicity declares, and he’s half-laughing, now, though it dies away when her hand wanders downwards. He’s already hard again, even before he feels the pool of moisture leak from between her legs onto his stomach, and as she manoeuvres herself onto him, he can’t stop himself gasping aloud. 

Gripping the backs of her thighs for support, Oliver sighs deeply, languidly. It feels so _good_ to be inside her – not just because of the way they seem to fit together so well, or because of the tiny moan that leaves her mouth when she rocks her hips a little more, but because of the fact that this is _them_ , that it feels familiar, now, that the only being that occupies his mind and body (and has done for the last fortnight) is Felicity. 

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes, one hand moving up to caress the gentle swell of her breast, and he thrusts upwards, meeting the movement of her hips with his own. Felicity leans down, then, and kisses him on his lips, once, twice, three times, before her mouth wanders to his jaw and up, to his cheek, then back to his lips, and he marvels at how easily she is still moving above him the whole time, her body in tandem with his. 

"So are you," she says, and she runs her hand over the top of his head and down his face, her thumb lightly trailing the edge of his cheek. "I love you. Even with that haircut."  
  
He chuckles, pressing a kiss just under her chin, but the sound turns into a groan when she wiggles her hips above him. "I love you too."  
  
And as both of them are lost in the slow, ardent pleasure of making love - notwithstanding the hot friction between the carpet and his skin – the album Felicity got him for his birthday lies on the bed, forgotten (for the moment, anyway). It's still open at the photo that, unbeknownst to either of them at the time, had actually started their story five years before. 

Later that night, when they finally heave themselves off the floor, Oliver decides his new mission is one that has nothing to do with green arrows and everything to do with that dark green leather-bound album and filling in the gaps.

**Author's Note:**

> So there are actually two prequels to this - [Epiphany](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4202838), which covers their dinner, with an appearance of the black strappy dress of sex that Felicity first wore in 1x04 of The Flash, and [Surprises](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4093573), which just features, well, more smut. :P 
> 
> Buuut, before you head on over there (I know you want to!), I would love to know your thoughts on this story. I kind of struggled with it, especially because it's kind of a departure from my usual style, so please, if you can take a moment to leave a comment, I promise I will reply to them and that I treasure each and every one. Thanks so much for reading! :)


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